Podcast: Ennis interview, previewing Rivera-Martin, Inoue undisputed
Plus: News of the week, including Valdez's injury, return of Braekhus and Crawford's malfunctioning gloves
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It’s a low-key fight weekend but Showtime has a card with an excellent and evenly matched main event between undefeated lightweight contenders Michel Rivera and Frank Martin on Saturday night. We previewed and discussed that fight. There is also my interview with welterweight contender Jaron “Boots” Ennis, who is back in the ring Jan. 7 in the Showtime PPV co-feature of the Gervonta Davis-Hector Luis Garcia fight. Plus: News of the week and more.
Here is what’s on the show (in order):
The late, great writer and personality Bert Sugar came up, which led to me telling a couple of stories about my late friend, who was a bit of a mentor to me early in my career, and how he wound up randomly drinking with my father at a Las Vegas bar.
We recapped Naoya Inoue’s dominating 11th-round knockout of Paul Butler to become the undisputed bantamweight champion and discuss the history he made and Butler’s pathetic performance.
The injury to Oscar Valdez that forced him to withdraw from the vacant WBO junior lightweight title bout against Emanuel Navarrete on Feb. 3, Navarrete’s new opponent and the plan after that fight.
Terence Crawford’s gloves coming apart at the seams against David Avanesyan, how that situation was handled, manufacturer Everlast’s explanation and Avanesyan protest to the Nebraska commission.
The Ohio commission correctly denying the protest of junior welterweight Montana Love, who was seeking to have his sixth-round disqualification against Stevie Spark on Nov. 12 overturned.
My interview with Ennis as he prepares to face Karen Chukhadzhian for the vacant IBF interim welterweight title next month. We discussed his thoughts on the fight, his struggle to get top opponents to face him, his expectations for 2023 and more.
We previewed Rivera-Martin and who has the edge between the unbeaten up-and-comers in their lightweight title eliminator? We also touched on the two TV undercard fights, Jose Uzcategui-Vladimir Shishkin in a super middleweight eliminator and Nikolai Potapov-Vincent Astrolabio in a bantamweight eliminator.
The return of former longtime undisputed women’s welterweight champion Cecilia Braekhus, who is moving up to junior middleweight and is set to fight Saturday on the undercard of the Golden Boy show on DAZN.
Listen, rate and subscribe here and enjoy!
Ennis photo: Amanda Westcott/Showtime
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